Alwaght-Afghan forces have foiled a major plan by ISIS terrorist group to establish a so-called emirate known as Khorasan province in Afghanistan, the country’s acting Minister of Defense Tariq Shah Bahrami has said.
Speaking during a press conference on Saturday in Kabul, Bahrami said the ISIS terrorist group was attempting to establish the Khorasan emirate or province under its so called caliphate in Kot and Achin district of Nangarhar.
However, he said the Afghan forces managed to foil the plans of the terror group by taking immediate steps and launching counter-terrorism operations that inflicted heavy casualties to the fighters of the terror group.
The terrorists had taken control of Tora Bora in Nangarhar on Thursday, after days of fighting with rival Taliban militants. The area has been a major stronghold of Taliban and has been used by militants to transfer weapons and arms across the border with Pakistan.
Bahrami said during the army operation to retake Tora Bora some 22 ISIS militants were killed, adding that 10 others were also wounded in the clearance mission. He would not elaborate on potential military casualties.
Bahrami further added that the Afghan security forces have launched 12 large operations so far and dozens of medium and large operations while hundreds of airstrikes have been conducted on the hideouts of the terror group.
According to the acting minister of defense, at least 2,500 militants of the terrorist group have been killed during the operations until now and around 800 others have sustained injuries.
He also added that the loyalists of the terror group were also hit during the operations in Helmand, Farah, Zabul, and Uruzgan provinces.
In the meantime, he said the fighters of the group are only having sporadic and small operations in the named places but do not have the capability to launch large scale attacks.
Analysts say ISIS is hostile towards Taliban because Taliban’s religious ideology and objectives are nationalistic based as it seeks to grab power and rule Afghanistan. This is while ISIS fights to establish a so-called Caliphate encompassing many countries and entire regions under one ruler.
ISIS surfaced in Afghanistan in early 2015, aiming to capture and consolidate territory in the “Khorasan Province,” that would be loyal to a “caliphate”.
Meanwhile, At least one Afghan was killed and seven American soldiers were wounded in an "insider attack" at a base in northern Afghanistan on Saturday, a U.S. military official said.
A spokesman for the US military command in Kabul said earlier comments by an Afghan official that Americans had been killed were incorrect.
Afghanistan is experiencing increased incidents of insecurity despite the presence of US-led NATO forces in the country.
